Free Republic

A Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoyev, who carried out missionary work among immigrants from ex-Soviet republics, many of them Muslims, received over a dozen death threats before his murder on Thursday, a Russian paper said. Fr. Daniel of St. Thomas Church in Moscow foresaw his death, writing in his internet diary that he had received telephone threats from Muslims. Fr. Daniel’s evening ‘talks’ for inquirers included several especially designed for Muslims.

A Russian Orthodox priest known for his outspoken criticism of Islam and attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity has been assassinated in his Moscow church. A masked gunman shot Father Daniil Sysoyev in the head and chest after asking for him by name, police said. The choirmaster, Vladimir Strelbinsky, was seriously wounded in the attack at St Thomas Church in southern Moscow. Father Daniil, 35, died of his wounds in hospital late last night. A Russian newspaper reported that he had recently told its journalists of 14 death threats by telephone and e-mail, which he had received as a result...

RZD President Vladimir Yakunin gave United States Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood a presentation on the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia. The presentation took place at the RZD Science and Technical Information Centre at Rizhsky Station, and was attended by the US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle. The RZD president showed the high-speed Sapsan train to the delegation from the US Department of Transportation, and described the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia up to 2030. The US transportation secretary said he was impressed by the first Russian high-speed train, built jointly by German and Russian...

British scientists suspect that swine flu virus has mutated in Ukraine. Some doctors say that flu in the country has shown unprecedented symptoms, creating the effect of burnt lungs

The diaries of a British reporter who risked his reputation to expose the horrors of Stalin's murderous famine in Ukraine were put on public display for the first time Friday. Welsh journalist Gareth Jones sneaked into Ukraine in March of 1933, at the height of a famine engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Millions of people starved to death between 1932 and 1933 as the Soviet secret police emptied the countryside of grain and livestock as part of a campaign to force peasants into collective farms.Jones' reporting was one of the first attempts to bring the disaster to the world's...

November 19, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Circling Sharks Smell American BloodAmerica should keep quieter abroad — and try finding a bigger stick. By Victor Davis Hanson On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama found China, Japan, and South Korea — like many nations these days — in no mood to hear more American lectures. Beijing is worried about owning so much American debt. Tokyo is tiring of an American military base in Okinawa, and wants to redefine its relationship with us. Seoul is starting to doubt American commitment to keep it safe from North Korea. Why all the sudden...

Russia's KBM has been briefing Middle East and other militaries on the Igla man-portable air defense system. The Igla-S, an enhanced version of Igla-9K38, was touted as effective against fighter-jets, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles. Iran and Syria have received a legacy variant of Igla-S. The Igla-S has been touted as capable of downing a range of U.S. UAVs deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It also has night-firing capability," KBM said. "Igla-S MANPADS is a new-generation system featuring considerably extended firing range and enhanced kill probability against aerial targets and possessing a new quality for this class of...

Russia has provided an "unprecedented" 970 billion roubles (22.6 billion euros, 33.8 billion dollars) to its defence industry this year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday. State support for the sector had helped it grow by 3.8 percent since the start of the year despite the economic downturn, Putin said in comments reported by Russian news agencies. "During the recession we have allocated enough money to the military-industrial sector, which is a priority for government support. In 2009 funding reached an unprecedented level for our country: almost 970 billion roubles," Putin said. State aid had taken the form of reduced-rate...

BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - NATO countries voiced concern on Wednesday at Russian and Belarusian exercises held near the Polish border in September, saying they were at odds with improved relations with Moscow. Ambassadors from the 28 NATO states meeting in Brussels expressed concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that envisioned an attack from the West, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. "There was the general sense that the political message of the exercise was incongruous with the general improvement in political relations and practical cooperation which is under way between NATO and Russia," Appathurai said....

Health Ministry: Flu, respiratory diseases claim 344 lives in Ukraine Yesterday at 20:36 | Interfax-Ukraine The current flu epidemic and other acute respiratory diseases in Ukraine has claimed 344 lives by Wednesday evening, the Health Ministry said. It said 18 people had died of such diseases in the previous 24 hours. The ministry said 1.502 million people had contracted such illnesses since the epidemic broke out and that 44,781 had fallen ill in the past 24 hours. A total of 83,904 people have been hospitalized since the start of the epidemic, and 54,407 of them have been discharged from the...

MOSCOW (AP) - A simmering confrontation between far-right youths and ant-racist activists has erupted into Moscow's streets after the fatal shooting of an anti-racist activist known as the Bonebreaker. The violence stems from deep animus between two aggressive camps with starkly different visions of Russia's future—neo-Nazi skinheads who rank in the tens of thousands and militant anti-racist groups that call themselves Antifa, short for anti-fascist. Former punk rocker Ivan Khutorskoi, 26, provided security for meetings of antifascists. He also was known for organizing underground bare-knuckle boxing matches among them, and taking part in violent attacks on ultranationalists.

Russian crime gangs are making millions by selling counterfeit Tamiflu online to Britons woried about swine flu, an internet security firm has claimed. Anxious residents who fear they may not be able to obtain the drug through the NHS could be funding organised crime abroad as well as putting themselves at risk of identity fraud when they buy the potentially useless drugs.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has often described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest tragedy” of the 20th century, has now said that the “reunification” of Georgia has “already been decided,” a suggestion some of his listeners believe was a call for restoring Moscow’s control over Georgia and even the former USSR as a whole. In an intriguing commentary published in yesterday’s “Gazeta,” Bozhena Rynska describes both the celebration of the 80th birthday of longtime Soviet and Russian official Yevgeny Primakov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two very different toasts on that occasion (www.gazeta.ru/column/rynska/3287611.shtml). The celebration took...

Russia is to build up its navy over the coming decade, President Dmitry Medvedev announced on Monday, as he visited a Russian guided missile cruiser in Singapore. Speaking to sailors on board the Russian Pacific Fleet's Varyag, Medvedev said around half of Russia's military hardware would have to be renewed by 2020. "Yes, an expansion of our naval presence is planned. Russia can only consider itself a full naval power if it has a full fleet that carries out training and combat tasks," he said, according to official Russian news agencies. The Varyag, built in the 1980s under the Soviet...

MORE than 100 penguin-loving tourists including dozens from Britain are trapped by ice off Antarctica aboard a Russian ice-breaker cruise ship... The Kapitan Khlebnikov is in a bay near Snow Hill island, located off the northeastern end of the Antarctic Peninsula, and cannot leave as the bay is sealed off with ice... Everything is calm aboard the ice-breaker, nothing is threatening the passengers and crew... There were 105 passengers aboard the vessel ...The ship has been at its current location for four days. "To put it plainly, the ship got stuck between an island and an ice massif.''

* Russia's powerful PM Putin meets local rappers * Rappers chant: "Respect, Vladimir Vladimirovich" MOSCOW(Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rubbed shoulders with rappers and was hailed with "respect" in a television show on Friday that could help boost his flagging ratings. Putin, wearing a turtleneck sweater and jacket, went on stage to present awards to participants in "Battle for Respect", a hip-hop music contest run by Muz TV, a Russian rival to MTV. "It would have been cool to record a joint track with Vladimir Putin because he is a legendary man and our idol," sang rapper Zhigan...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Monday that climate change posed a "catastrophic" threat in some of the sharpest comments yet on a subject the Kremlin has often seemed reluctant to confront. Although the United States said that the consensus amongst the 19 leaders at the weekend Asia Pacific summit in Singapore was that a climate change deal this December was unlikely, Medvedev made clear he felt it was a top priority. "If we don't take joint action, the consequences for the planet may be very distressing to the point that the Arctic and Antarctic ice can...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, never shy with a photo opportunity, took his man-of-the-people act to the hip-hop dancefloor, where he used a rap music competition to deliver an anti-drugs message. "Graffiti is becoming a true art, fine and delicate," Mr Putin, clad in a beige turtleneck and grey sports jacket, told a young crowd at the "Respect" rap contest. "And breakdance is something peculiar," he said. "This really is propaganda for a healthy lifestyle because it is hard to imagine breakdancing having anything to do with drinking and dope," Mr Putin said. The powerful Russian president-turned-Prime Minister praised the...

Body Parts Sold To Kebab Stand, Police Say Three Russians also suspected of killing man, eating parts themselves MOSCOW - Russian police have arrested three homeless people suspected of eating a 25-year-old man they had butchered and selling other bits of the corpse to a local kebab house. Suspicions were raised when dismembered parts of a human body were found near a bus stop in the outskirts of the Russian city of Perm, 720 miles east of Moscow. Three homeless men with previous criminal records have been arrested on suspicion of setting upon a foe with knives and a hammer...

(An Excerpt From Page 2 Of The Article)...“I should mention another interesting aspect. Modern-day Western arms are produced with special chips which make it impossible to use the weapons against the manufacturing country and its allies. It may mean that Saudi Arabia does not exclude a possible military confrontation with the West. Finally, Saudi Arabia does not perceive Moscow as an enemy. Quite on the contrary – it’s a potential partner,” the expert said...

Russia's army will get new missiles and nuclear submarines from 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, stressing the need to replace the ageing military arsenal. "Next year, the army will get 30 ballistic missiles...five Iskander (missile) systems, some 300 new armoured vehicles, 30 helicopters, 28 fighter planes, three nuclear submarines, a ship, as well as 11 spacecraft," Medvedev said in his annual address to the nation. "These measures will allow our armed forces and our allies to deal with any threat," he told officials in a speech at the Kremlin. Much of Russia's military equipment dates back to Soviet...

MOSCOW, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Russian soldiers in World War II Soviet uniform and other historical military costumes, accompanied by two famed T-34 tanks, marched through Moscow's Red Square on Saturday to mark the 68th anniversary of a legendary military parade in 1941. About 4,000 young Muscovites also participated in the parade, watched by some 6,000 spectators, including at least 45 participants of the 1941 parade. The Nov. 7, 1941 parade, which commemorated the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was held after Russia joined World War II and aimed to raise morale as Nazi German forces approached Moscow. The troops headed straight...

From Kalingrad in Europe to Kamchatka in the Far East, the country covers 11 time zones. "We need to look at the possibility of cutting the number of time zones," Mr Medvedev said in his annual address to the nation, delivered at the Kremlin before an audience of Russia's political elite. "Of course we need to consider the consequences of such a decision," he added. In a wide-ranging speech focused almost entirely on domestic issues, Mr Medvedev also wondered aloud whether Russia really needed to continue changing the clocks twice a year for daylight saving. "Here we need to compare...

Twenty years later: Why the Berlin Wall fell S A Aiyar Sunday October 25, 2009 We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism. This comprehensively refuted the Communist claim to represent the people. Yet, the claim continues, sometimes dazzling a new generation of youngsters with no inkling of why the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. In democratic Capitalism, said Karl Marx, the rich became richer and the poor poorer. Marxism inspired young idealists for over a century. Lenin’s revolution in Russia in 1917 was hailed as a new dawn. Stalin’s invasions brought Communism to Eastern...

MOSCOW -- The creator of the popular AK-47 assault rifle that bears his name, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has marked his 90th birthday, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. Kalashnikov's AK-47 rifle became the Soviet Army's standard issue rifle in 1949, two years after the model was created. Since that time Kalashnikov has lived in Izhevsk, the capital of the Russian Republic of Udmurtia. The AK-47 design became popular internationally and was exported widely to all allies of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Kalashnikov was twice given the Hero of Socialist Labor medal during the Soviet era. In 1998, then-President Boris Yeltsin...

India's plight: A carrier running out of jets; fighters without their carrier Rajat Pandit, TNN 12 November 2009, 02:33am IST NEW DELHI: Sheer lack of long-term strategic planning, coupled with a dose of bad luck, has landed India in a peculiar situation. If it did not expose a gaping hole in the country's military capabilities, the predicament would have actually been quite ludicrous. On one hand, it has an ageing but newly-refurbished aircraft carrier, INS Viraat, which is fast running out of fighters which can operate from its deck. On the other, it's soon going to induct another type of...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vitaly Ginzburg, a Russian physicist who survived Stalin's purges by working on the Soviet atomic bomb project and later won the Nobel Prize for physics, died in Moscow late on Sunday after a long illness. He was 93. Ginzburg won the 2003 Nobel physics prize for developing the theory behind superconductors, materials which allow electricity to pass without resistance at very low temperatures. He shared the prize with British-American Anthony Leggett and Russian-born U.S. scientist Alexei Abrikosov. But Ginzburg's career as a Soviet scientist almost ended when he took as his second wife a woman arrested in...

Nov 10, 2009 — When the Berlin wall fell 20 years ago, Dorothee Hubner first dared to think, “Are we allowed to leave and finally be free?” Her story and that of her parents Gerhard and Gertraude, scientists trapped in East Germany, was told by Andrew Curry, a freelance writer, in Science.[1] Dorothee was 23 years old in 1989. Her parents, also biochemists, “had spent decades struggling to do research in East Germany without compromising their personal ideals with allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.” By not pledging allegiance to the ruling Communist Party, the Hubners faced a life of...

Bloomberg can't be posted on FR, so I can only post a link. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aP_6NUKjFaSM#

Mikhail Gorbachev—the man who pulled the Soviet Union's troops out of Afghanistan after a decade of stalemate—says the US should do the same.

A Russian Tu-142M3 reconnaissance aircraft recently crashed twenty kilometers off the Pacific coast, during a training mission. The Tu-142 is an unarmed maritime patrol aircraft that, in the last few years, have resumed long range patrols. Such activity had been halted in the early 1990s. The Tu-142, which was introduced in the 1970s, is the patrol version of the Tu-95 heavy bomber. This aircraft entered service 51 years ago, and is expected to remain in service, along with the Tu-142 variant, for another three decades. But these elderly aircraft are increasingly expensive to maintain, and prone to developing unexpected problems....

The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago today. When it happened, I thought it would be the clear turning point: the left would admit it was wrong, if not clueless, about central planning. But it was I who was wrong. Congress legislates like the Wall never fell. There was one bad thing about the fall of the USSR: We lost a very visible bad example of big centralized government. With Washington now turning to central planning to “fix” healthcare, clean the environment, and “create” jobs, it’s helpful to have role models of failure. They remind citizens of the politicians’ arrogance....

Helen Rappaport, an acclaimed historian and author, said that books, papers and journals charting Lenin’s last years show that he contracted the sexually transmitted disease and that it ultimately claimed his life. She said Lenin showed many symptoms of syphilis and that many among the Soviet hierarchy believed he had it. But they were banned from speaking in public and threatened with death because of the embarrassment it would cause. Instead, official documents show that his death was attributed to declining health following three stokes and an assassination attempt in 1918. Central to Miss Rappaport’s case was a report written...

Once the butt of jokes the world over, communist-era East European goods from sweets, to rustic washing machines and clunky cars are all the rage again. As the world prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, souvenirs such as portraits of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu are now avidly sought at markets. In Belgrade, cafes are named after Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito or even the Soviet KGB secret police.

Last month, a Russian Il-76 transport crashed after taking off from a Siberian airport. The aircraft had just unloaded a cargo. This accident was no surprise, in general, because of growing problems with the aging Il-76 fleet. For example, a month ago, all Il-76s were grounded because the engine fell off one of them while it was preparing to takeoff. All Russian Il-76s remained grounded until recently, when it was determined that the problem was not common to all Il-76s. The recent crash led to another mass grounding, and growing unease among the many foreign nations that use the Il-76.....

'Diary of a Kremlin insider reveals the hold Soviets had over Labour politicians'

A Russian military plane crashed into the sea during a training exercise in Russia's Far East region, leaving all 11 crew members missing and presumed dead, officials said on Saturday. The Tupolev Tu-142 plane disappeared from radar as it was coming to the end of a training mission on Friday over the Tatarski Strait that divides Russia's Far East island of Sakhalin from the mainland, the defence ministry said. "Given the conditions under which the catastrophe took place, we can presume that all the crew aboard the Tu-142 were killed," a source in the emergencies ministry told the RIA Novosti...

November 4, 2009: Russian defense officials announced that the failed Bulava ballistic missile test last July, was due to a defect in the first stage steering system. This was fixed, and another test will take place before the end of the month. So far, the Bulava has been test fired eleven times. Only one of those tests was an unqualified success, and six were absolute failures. But the Russian government insists that development will continue, and succeed. The inept development of the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) for the new Boeri class SSBN (nuclear submarine carrying SLBMs) has...

China air force much improved though still lagging Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press Writer – Thu Nov 5, 12:21 pm ET BEIJING – China's rapidly modernizing air force is planning a display of its new military might for its 60th anniversary, showcasing a wide-ranging technical upgrade that has boosted its capabilities, though it still lags far behind its main rival, the United States. The People's Liberation Army Air Force is marking the occasion this Sunday with an aerial show and skydiving exhibition, using some of the state-of-the-art combat aircraft that have replaced hundreds of antiquated MIG fighters. While only about 20...

Poland has demanded that US troops be based on Polish soil in the wake of Russian war games which simulated a nuclear attack and invasion. Radek Sikorski, Poland's foreign minister, said he was alarmed by recent military exercises conducted by the Russian army in Belarus, a country that borders Poland, and wanted the US military as a counterweight. "We would like to see US troops stationed in Poland to serve as a shield against Russian aggression," he said. "If you can still afford it, we need some strategic reassurance." Despite assurances given by US Vice President Joe Biden last month...

In the war-ravaged Russian republic of Chechnya, the local government is pouring money into the construction of mosques and other Islamic institutions. Despite Russian law that declares a separation of church and state, Chechen schools must now promote Islam. There are 15 million to 20 million Muslims in Russia, and their share of the overall population of 140 million is growing. As many seek to return to their roots, the government has supported the construction of mosques and Islamic schools as long as they do not challenge the state. But in Chechnya, the Moscow-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov has gone even...

Just how deep the tentacles of communism reached into the heart of British government has now been revealed with the emergence of an extraordinary diary by Anatoly Chernyaev, the Soviet Union's contact man with the West at the icy height of the Cold War. Meticulously detailed and written by hand on lined notepaper, the diary has come to light in the U.S. National Security Archive.

TBILISI -- The chairman of Georgia's opposition Labor Party is in Washington to discuss Georgian-U.S.-Russian relations and the recognition of Kosovo and Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, RFE/RL's Georgian and Russian services report. Labor Party Secretary-General Joseph Shatberashvili told RFE/RL that the main goal of Shalva Natelashvili's visit to Washington is "to start a dialogue with Moscow and Washington� on Moscow’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Washington’s recognition of Kosovo. Shatberashvili says that Labor Party leaders believe that if Washington would revoke its recognition of Kosovo's independence it would cause Russia to reconsider its decision...

Russian defense officials announced that the failed Bulava ballistic missile test last July, was due to a defect in the first stage steering system. This was fixed, and another test will take place before the end of the month. So far, the Bulava has been test fired eleven times. Only one of those tests was an unqualified success, and six were absolute failures. But the Russian government insists that development will continue, and succeed. The inept development of the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) for the new Boeri class SSBN (nuclear submarine carrying SLBMs) has become a growing...

Cold War: The White House has announced our absence at ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, Russia has been practicing a nuclear invasion of an abandoned Poland. The Berlin Wall has been a famous backdrop for American presidents sounding the battle cry of liberty in the struggle against tyranny. It was there that John F. Kennedy expressed our solidarity with the encircled residents of that outpost of freedom with his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner." And it was there that Ronald Reagan, with a defiant "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," voiced our...

The 20th anniversary of the 1989 East European revolutions has re-opened contentious debate over who won the Cold War and what caused Soviet communism to disintegrate so rapidly in its final years. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was a symbolic milestone, heralding the break-up of the Soviet Union two years later. Looking back, many people directly involved are still asking: Was Soviet communism defeated? Was it overthrown? Or did it simply collapse from within? The rapid succession of events which marked the end of the Cold War is not in dispute. Poland's historic roundtable talks between...

Russia has provoked outrage in Poland by simulating an air and sea attack on the country during military exercises. The armed forces are said to have carried out "war games" in which nuclear missiles were fired and troops practised an amphibious landing on the country's coast. Documents obtained by Wprost, one of Poland's leading news magazines, said the exercise was carried out in conjunction with soldiers from Belarus. The manoeuvres are thought to have been held in September and involved about 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops. Poland, which has strained relations with both countries, was cast as the "potential aggressor"....

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment. Now, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria...

Capitalism and democracy have lost popularity in the former Soviet republics of Eastern and Central Europe, where many people felt better off economically under communism, a poll showed Monday. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, research by the Pew Research Center showed the percentage of people approving of democracy was markedly lower in the former Soviet bloc compared to a similar 1991 poll.

<p>Gunmen shot dead a former KGB spy in his car a few hundred yards from the office of Vladimir Putin.</p> <p>More than 20 shots were fired at the Mercedes of Shabtai von Kalmanovic — who had embarked on a career promoting sports teams and music concerts.</p>